LAW OF RECOGNITION IN THE ASSOCIATED ARTS
Explanation of the law--Its application to poetry--To sculpture--To
painting--To fiction.
While we are unable to explain, logically and completely, our
appreciation of what we understand as beauty, experience has taught us
that there are certain phenomena connected with aesthetic perception
which are so regular and undeviating in their application as to have all
the force of law. The first and most important of these phenomena
relates to the interval of time elapsing between the sense perception of
a thing of art, and the recognition by the mind of the beauty therein.
We know from common experience of the Associated Arts that if one fails
to appreciate a work almost immediately after comprehending its nature
and purport, he arrives at the conclusion that there is no beauty
therein, or at least that the beauty is so obscure as to be scarcely
worth consideration. But sometimes on further acquaintance with the work
the view of the observer may be changed, and he may become aware of a
certain beauty which he did not before appreciate. We notice also that
when the beauty is comparatively high, it is more rapidly recognized
than when it is comparatively low. Continuing the examination we arrive
at what is evidently an unalterable law, namely, that the higher the
aesthetic value in a particular sphere of art, the more rapidly is the
beauty therein recognized; that is to say, given any two works, other
things being equal, that is the higher art the beauty in which is the
more quickly conveyed to the mind of the observer after contact with it,
and precisely to the extent to which the reasoning powers are required
to be exercised in comprehending the work, so the beauty therein is
diminished. The law may be called for convenience the Law of
Recognition.
But there are different kinds of beauty as well as degrees. One kind may
be more quickly recognized, and yet make a weaker impression on the
mind, a condition which is due to the varying relations between the
sensorial and intellectual elements in the works. We note that in all
the Associated Arts, as the works therein descend in aesthetic value, the
emotional element becomes more evident, and consequently the impression
received, less permanent. But sensorial beauty is the first essential in
a work of art: hence while the direct appeal to the mind must be made as
strong as possible, this must not be done at the expense of the
emotional elements. We unconsciously measure the emotional with the
intellectual effect, and if the former does not at least equal the
latter, we reject the work as inferior art. A painted Madonna wanting in
beauty of features is instantly and properly condemned even if her
figure be enshrined within surroundings of saintly glories which in
themselves make a powerful appeal to the mind. In fact the highest
reaches in art were probably originally suggested by the necessity of
balancing the one with the other form of beauty. The highest
intellectual considerations seem to rise far above any emotional
experiences connected with ordinary life, and hence to enable these
considerations to enter the domain of art, the divine must be introduced
so that the artist may extend his imaginative scope for the provision of
emotional effects commensurate, as far as possible, with the importance
of his appeal to the mind. Hence in all arts which combine an
intellectual with an emotional appeal, the highest forms must ever be
connected with the spiritual.
In other grades of these arts also, the artist has to use special means
to maintain a due balance between the two kinds of beauty. Shakespeare
could not give men and women of every-day experience the wisdom, the
judgment, and the foresight necessary for the presentation of the
powerful pictures which some of his characters throw upon the mind, so
he raises them above the level of life by according them greater virtues
and nobler passions than are to be found in people of actual experience.
The supreme emotional effects he produces seem perfectly appropriate
therefore to the intellectual appeals. In the next lower form of art,
where the representation does not go beyond life experience, the
emotional appeal is of still greater relative importance because the
appeal to the mind is rarely striking. The emotional effect here may
indeed be so overpowering that the purely mental considerations are
lost sight of, and we observe that in all the greater works of art in
the division, whether of poetry, painting, sculpture, or fiction, the
intellectual appeal is vastly exceeded by the emotional. When we reach
the grade which deals with subjects inferior to the average level of
human life, as the representation of animals, landscape, humour,
still-life, the sensorial effect must be exceedingly strong relatively,
otherwise the art would scarcely be recognizable, the appeal to the mind
being necessarily weak.
It is clearly compulsory then that the Associated Arts, all of which may
appeal to the mind as well as to the senses, should be separated into
divisions for the purpose of applying the Law of Recognition, and these
divisions are obvious, for they are marked by the strongest natural
boundary lines. They are: 1. The art which deals with divinities. 2.
That which exhibits beauty above life experience, but does not reach the
divine. 3. That which represents life. 4. That which produces
representations inferior to life. This separation corresponds with that
applied by Aristotle to poetry and painting, except that he joined the
two first sections into one, which he described as better than life. But
the division of the great philosopher, while being sufficient for his
purpose, is hardly close enough for the full consideration of the kinds
of beauty, since it puts in the same class, representations of the
divinity and the superman--joins Homer and Phidias with Praxiteles and
Raphael. In dealing with the divine the artist need place no limit to
his imagination in the presentation of his picture, whereas with the
superman he must circumscribe his fancy within the limits of what may
appear to the senses to be possibly natural. It is true that the poet
may use the supernatural as distinguished from the divine, to enable him
to extend his imaginative scope, and so give us beautiful pictures which
would be otherwise unpresentable. Shakespeare makes us imagine Puck
encircling the earth in forty minutes, and Shelley shows us iron-winged
beings climbing the wind, but we immediately recognize these pictures as
figures of fancy, or as in the nature of allegory, and they do not
impress us so deeply as the miraculous flight of a goddess of Homer, or
an assemblage of the satellites of Satan in the Hell of Milton, for we
involuntarily regard these events as compatible with the religious faith
of great nations, and so as having a nearer apparent semblance of truth.
Sacred art therefore, being capable of providing beauty of a much higher
kind than any other form, should be placed in a separate section for the
purpose of considering the law under discussion. Only poetry among the
arts is capable of appropriately representing divine actions, and only
sculpture of producing a form so perfect as to bring a divinity to mind.
Hence these arts are alone concerned with the Law of Recognition as
applied to the first section of the Associated Arts.
The law applies to all the Associated Arts, and to all sections of them,
except the lowest form of painting--that represented by harmony of
colour without appeal to the mind of any kind--but this form is so weak
and exceptional that it need hardly be considered in the general
proposition. Indeed we might reasonably argue that it does not come
within the fine arts, as it is produced by a mechanical arrangement of
things with fixed and unalterable physical properties.
The law cannot apply to music and architecture, for the effects of these
are purely emotional, and so directly vary with conditions of time and
place respectively. A work of architecture may seem more beautiful in
one place than in another; and a work of music more or less beautiful
according as it more or less synchronizes with emotional conditions of
human activity surrounding the hearer at the time of the performance.
While this law is unvarying in the Associated Arts, there are artificial
restrictions which must be considered in order that apparent deviations
from it may be understood. Special restrictions in relation to the
higher poetry and sculpture are mentioned later on, but there is also an
important general restriction. The sense nerves and the imagination,
like all other functions, must be exercised in order that normal healthy
conditions may be retained; but a large section of the people, by force
of circumstances or want of will, have neglected this exercise, and so
through disuse or misuse these functions are often in a condition which
is little more than rudimentary. Hence such persons are practically
debarred from appreciation of many forms of art, and particularly those
wherein intellectual beauty is a marked feature. In discussing the
operation of this law amongst people in general therefore, the writer
must be understood to refer only to that section of the community whose
sense nerves and imaginations may be supposed to be in a healthy, active
condition.
Experience with all the Associated Arts has clearly demonstrated the
validity of this law. The strength of the devices used by the poet lies
in simplifying the presentation of his pictures. Metaphor is necessary
to the poet, for without it he would be powerless to present pictures
made up of a number of parts, but he also uses it for the purpose of
throwing simple images upon the mind more rapidly, and consequently more
forcibly, than would be possible if direct means were employed; and the
beauty of the metaphor appears the greater according as it more
completely fills in the picture which the poet is desirous of
presenting. When other artifices than metaphor or simile are applied,
the result only appears very beautiful when the condensation of the
language used is extreme, and when there is no break in the delineation
of the action. A few supreme examples of beauty derived from the
principal devices of the poet for presenting his pictures may be
instanced, and it will be found that in each case the power of the image
is directly due to the brevity of expression, the simplicity of
description and metaphor, or the unimpeded representation of action.
More than three thousand years have passed since the period assigned to
Helen of Troy, and yet each generation of men and women as they learn of
her, have deeply sealed upon their minds the impression that she was of
surpassing beauty, almost beyond the reach of human conception. We have
practically no details of her appearance from Homer or Hesiod, except
that she was neat-ankled, white-armed, rich-haired, and had the
sparkling eyes of the Graces, but already in the time of Hesiod her
renown "spread over the earth." What was it then that established the
eternal fame of her beauty? Simply a few words of Homer indicating the
startling effect of her appearance before the elders of Troy. We are
allowed to infer that these dry, shrunken-formed sages, shrill-voiced
with age, became passionately disturbed by a mere glance at her figure,
and nervously agreed with each other that little blame attached to the
Greeks and Trojans for suffering such long and severe hardships on
account of her, for only with the goddesses could she be compared. How
wondrous must be the beauty when a glimpse of it suffices to hasten the
blood through shrivelled veins, and provoke tempestuous currents to
awake atrophied nerves! Without the record of this incident, the vague
notices of Helen's appearance would be very far from sufficient to
account for the universal recognition of her marvellous beauty.[22]
[Illustration: PLATE 7 (See page 122)
Greek Sculpture, 4th Century B.C. Attributed to Scopas
Greek Bronze, 3d Century B.C.
Heads of Demeter]
One of the finest lines of Shakespeare is, "How sweet the moonlight
sleeps upon this bank." The beauty of the line rests entirely upon the
use of the word "sleeps" to express something which could not be
otherwise said without the use of many words. The moonbeam is apparently
perfectly still, the atmosphere calm, and there is nothing in the
surroundings to disturb the natural tranquillity, these conditions
inducing a feeling of softness and rest in the observer. If it had been
necessary to say all this, Shakespeare would certainly have omitted
reference to the moonlight, but his powerful imagination brings to mind
the word "sleeps" to express the conditions, and we are overwhelmed with
a beautiful picture suddenly thrown on the brain as if by a brilliant
flash of light.
Among the many illustrations of the point which may be found in the
Bible, is the great passage, "And God said, 'Let there be Light,' and
there was Light." This is described by Longinus as nobly expressed, but
he does not suggest any cause for its aesthetic effect. It is true that
nothing could be finer, but the nobility of the expression is derived
from its brevity--from the extreme rapidity with which so vast and
potent an event as an act of creation is pictured on the brain.[23] A
description of an act of creation, although involving psychological
considerations of sublimity, is not necessarily so beautiful in
expression as to be a work of art.
In the case of lyric poetry, brevity of expression, though still of high
importance, is not of so much moment as in epic or dramatic verse,
because the substance is subordinated to beauty of expression and
musical form. Devices are used chiefly for strengthening the sensorial
element, the appeal to the mind being in most cases secondary.
Nevertheless the lyric poet wastes no words. Take for example Sappho's
_Ode to Anactoria_. The substance of these amazing lines is
comparatively insignificant, being merely the expression of emotion on
the part of an individual consequent upon disappointment, yet the
transcendent beauty of the poem has held enthralled fourscore
generations of men and women, and still the world gasps with
astonishment at its perfection. Obviously the beauty of the ode rests
mainly on qualities of form which cannot be reproduced in translation,
but the substance may be, and it will be observed that the description
of the action is unsurpassable. The picture, the whole picture, and
nothing but the picture, is thrown on the mind rapidly and directly; so
rapidly that the movement of the brush is scarcely discernible, and so
simply that not a thought is required for its elucidation. With the
chain of symptoms broken or less closely connected, the passion
indicated would be comparatively feeble, whatever the force of the
artifices in rhythm and expression which Sappho knew so well how to
employ.[24]
As with poetry, so with the arts of sculpture and painting: the greatest
works result from simple designs. All the sculptures which we recognize
as sublime or highly beautiful, consist of single figures, or in very
rare cases, groups of two or three, and indeed it is difficult to hold
in our minds a carved group of several figures. The images of the Zeus
and Athena of Phidias, though we know little of them except from
literary records and inferior copies, are far more brilliantly mirrored
upon our minds than the Parthenon reliefs. The importance of simplicity
is perhaps more readily seen in sculpture than in any other art, for the
slightest fault in design has an immediate effect upon the mind of the
observer. It is noticeable that the decadence of a great art period is
usually first marked by complications in sculptured figures.[25]
In painting, the pictures which we regard as great are characterized by
their simplicity, and the immediate recognition of their purport. They
are either ideal figures, or groups where at least the central figure is
idealized and commonly known. The work must be grasped at one glance for
the beauty to be of a high order. Hence in the case of frescoes great
artists have not attempted to make the beauty of any part dependent upon
the comprehension of the whole. It is impossible for the eye to take in
at a single glance the whole of a large fresco painting, and this
explains why a fresco celebrated for its beauty is often disappointing
to one who sees it for the first time, and endeavours to impress it on
his mind as a single picture by rapidly piecing together the different
parts.[26] Polygnotus could well paint forty scenes from Homer as mural
decoration in one hall, for they could only be examined and understood
as separate pictures; and the ceiling of Michelangelo at the Vatican is
so arranged that there is no necessity for combining the parts in the
mind. So with the Parma frescoes of Correggio. Raphael had a different
task in his Vatican frescoes, but he accomplished it by arranging his
figures so that each separate group is a beautiful picture; and Lionardo
in his great work at Milan divided the Apostles into groups of three in
order to minimize the consideration necessary for the appreciation of so
large a work.
Fiction is divided into two sections, the novel and the short story, and
they are so distinct in character that they must necessarily be
considered separately in the application of the law under discussion.
Form is of high importance in both classes of the art, but weighs more
in the short story because here the appeal to the mind is unavoidably
restricted. The novelist is capable of producing a higher beauty than is
within the range of the short-story writer. The latter is limited in his
delineation of character to the circumstances surrounding a single
experience, while the novelist, in describing various experiences, may
add shade upon shade in expression and thus elevate the characters and
actions above the level possible of attainment by means of a single
incident. But within his limit the short-story writer may provide his
beauty more easily than the novelist, because a picture can be more
readily freed from complications when away from surroundings, than when
it forms one of a series of pictures which must have connecting links. A
good short story consists of a single incident or experience in a life
history. It is clearly cut, without introduction, and void of a
conclusion which is not directly part of the incident. The subject is of
general interest; the language simple, of common use, and free from
mannerisms; while there are no accessories beyond those essential for
the comprehension of the scheme. These conditions, which imply the most
extreme simplicity, are present in all the greatest short stories known
to us--the best works of the author of the _Contes Nouvelles_, of
Sacchetti, Boccaccio, Margaret of Navarre, Hoffman, Poe, and De
Maupassant. The novel differs from the short story in that it is a large
section of a life with many experiences, but the principles under which
the two varieties of fiction are built up, are precisely the same.
Obviously the limit in length of a novel is that point beyond which the
writer cannot enhance the beauty of character and action, while
maintaining the unity of design. This means the concentration of effort
in the direction of simplicity, facilitating the rapid reception of the
pictures presented by the writer upon the mind of the reader.
It is thus evident that the higher the beauty in the Associated Arts,
the simpler are the signs or sign combinations which produce it; and
hence the Law of Recognition rests on a secure foundation, for the
simple must necessarily be recognized before the complex.